


only finger lengths

by katyfaise



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Gen, Prompt Fill, gaby setting the world on fire to find her man, minor mention of torture, not descriptive dont worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katyfaise/pseuds/katyfaise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Killing someone will change who you are. It is the hardest thing you will ever do.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	only finger lengths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveandleelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandleelin/gifts).



> this is a prompt fill for my dear friend dana   
> i had a sudden, rare burst of inspiration to do this for her  
> it's not great by any means and it's a very short drabble but i hope she enjoys it   
> title from set the fire to the third bar

“Killing someone will change who you are. It is the hardest thing you will ever do.”

The thought lingers in Gaby’s mind as she watches the lights on the panel light up one by one, the elevator she’s huddled in alongside men from the British Navy descending deeper into the earth. Gaby looks down at her hands, pristine and clean and not at all stained red like she had imagined them to be. Absently, she brushes them against her fatigues, wondering if perhaps she is imagining the pale color of her palms and maybe the red will appear as time wears on, but nothing comes. Instead, she grips the gun in her grasp tighter.

It amazes Gaby just how wrong Illya had been - her usually correct confidant.

It isn’t hard to kill at all.

If anything, it surprises her just how easy it had been to pull a trigger and take a life. Especially in exchange for the life she’s rescuing. 

Days before he’d been kidnapped from them - taken by Turkish drug traffickers after an attack on their hotel. The hotel stands in rubble now, an explosion taking more lives than any of them had expected, but Gaby can’t find it in her heart to mourn for those she doesn’t know. Loss is a part of her job, it’s in the very description. But Illya, her Illya, was taken by force.

And she will retrieve him in the same way.

There’s a wake of bodies in her trail, left carelessly in a way that Napoleon and Waverly would both frown upon. But Gaby has put usual cares aside. She is a woman on a mission - on the very same mission that Illya would carve out for her. 

The elevator dings loudly and the doors open. Men file out at Gaby’s silent orders and march a path down the hallway to a pair of l doors that loom in the distance. It’s quiet - the faculty abandoned and cleared out beforehand thanks to proper planning on her end. When she enters the room, it’s Illya tied to the chair underneath a single lightbulb that stops her dead in her tracks.

“All clear, mum,” a soldier says somewhere near her, but the voice is distant and Gaby nods weakly. With her gun holstered, she kneels behind the chair and unties Illya’s hands. His head slumps forward with his weak shoulders and he doesn’t move and Gaby feels her breath catch in her throat. 

“Illya,” she breathes, standing in front of the man. She reaches out and holds his head up, fingertips lingering on his bruised cheeks and brushing against the dried blood. “Illya, please…” she continues and his eyes flutter open to look up at her, adjusting to the harsh light.

He breathes her name and she pulls his head against her bosom, holding him close. “I’m here now,” she says, deciding against telling him how wrong he was before. Later, when he lays in the infirmary and she holds his hand while he sleeps she hums quietly and sips lukewarm coffee. She lets him sleep, lets him heal and rest, and she watches him, intent to never let him out of her sight again.

It is easy to kill a man, Gaby knows this now. 

But it doesn’t mean she wishes to practice it again.


End file.
